Naval Occasions And Some Traits Of The Sailor-Man

Bartimeus, writing from firsthand experience, captures the vanished world of the Edwardian Royal Navy in these twenty-six portraits of sailors at war and peace. Here are no romanticized heroes but rather working men bound by protocol, tradition, and an earthy humor that belies the harshness of their calling. The stories move from fleet maneuvers to foreign stations, from the captain's cabin to the fo'c'sle, rendering a service culture where class distinctions coexist with profound mutual dependence. These are tales of small dramas: a mutiny quelled by wit, a collision at night, the tedium of blockade duty, the sudden violence of action. Bartimeus writes with precision about ships and seamanship, but his true subject is the strange fraternity of men who go to sea in wooden walls.